Myopic if Khairy stands on Bersatu ticket

 

 Speculation that Khairy Jamaluddin may dally with Bersatu, if it eventuates in him contesting on a Bersatu ticket in upcoming state polls, will be a strategic error for the former Umno Youth leader.

This is because Khairy (above) is a centrist Malay leader while Bersatu is a right-wing Malay party, one that’s now under a cloud due to a raft of corruption charges levied against its top party officials.

Both Bersatu and PAS did well in the 15th general election last November, which was credited to a “Green Wave” that swept the northern and eastern states of the peninsula.

Recent graduates of madrassas factored in enabling the sweep based on their perception that Bersatu and PAS were cleaner parties when compared to Umno, whom the Islamic voters viewed as irredeemably corrupt.

Will this sentiment endure, given the spate of corruption charges recently preferred against top members of the Bersatu leadership cohort?

It’s too early to say, but when it comes to the question of corruption these days, it is safer to inquire “Which individual?” rather than “Which party?” if one is asked about its incidence.

It is obvious the scourge is widespread and so assertions that some parties are cleaner than their rivals are now decidedly disingenuous.

Not unpopular in Umno

The corruption index aside, the more significant barometer of the viability of a party is its ideological orientation and how this can position it to swim with and transform political currents awash in society.

In Umno, Khairy was a force for middle-of-the-road politics, a centrist who was uncomfortable with expressions of ethnocentrism or of its religious variation.

Umno’s poor performance in GE15 was the cumulative consequence of its long abandonment of its originally centrist politics, compounded in recent decades by its descent into the quagmire of corruption.

Khairy’s centrist stance was not exactly unpopular in Umno; his sacking was owed to his criticism of party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who decided he could afford to get rid of the party’s chief dissenter as he fortified his grip on Umno.

Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi

Umno does have a history of expelled dissenters who waited in the wilderness for the tides to shift before applying to rejoin the party.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad, no favourite of Khairy’s, was the most famous of the discards who returned to triumph within it.

But Mahathir led Umno astray from its original centrist leanings, vainly seeking to promote a Malay dominance that was destructive of party and country.

Waiting out the drought

Umno’s decision to make common cause and support an Anwar Ibrahim-led government, after GE15 ended in a hung Parliament, is actually the breather it needs to retrieve its centrist moorings simply from comingling with similarly minded parties in the ruling government coalition.

In the process, it will have to shed the corrupt excrescence that has grown over the long years of its rule.

If things head in that direction, Khairy will find conditions more favourable for a return to the party.

However, if he joins Bersatu to contest for a seat in the Selangor state polls, likely to be held in July, he will be viewed as a renegade. Umno does not take too kindly to quislings.

At 47, Khairy is not old in terms of age to find a spell in the wilderness a prospect that is discouraging or daunting.

At 70, his nemesis Zahid is not going to be around for long to stand against Khairy’s possible return to Umno.

Both a sense of history and a feel for the ebb and tide of his party’s original sensibility ought to prompt Khairy to wait out the current drought of his fortunes for shifts that could carry him to better times. - Mkini

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TERENCE NETTO is a journalist with half a century’s experience.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT